Am I a smart woman?

I am in the midst of reading “Smart Women Finish Rich” by David Bach. I have to say I am quite enjoying the way this book is written. So in keeping up with the book, I thought that I would jot down my “Values” here. David says Values are quite different from “Goals”. Goals would be things like:

Paying off debt

Saving x amount of money

Buying a house etc

From what I got out of the book, values are stuff that are important to you in non-monetary way but achieved through money. For example, in my case I could build up my values this way:

What is important about money to me?

Security

What is important about Security to me?

Freedom From Financial Worries

What is important about Freedom From Financial Worries to me?

Being able to take a break from working in order to enjoy time with family and loved ones. Visit family often, perhaps start my own family.

That was Step 2 of the book. These are my values for now. They might change down the line, but for now these are the most important values that I strive towards.

In Step 3 of the book, one of the tasks is to jot down up to 10 Goals you want to achieve in the next 3 years. Mine are:

Finish graduate school without any amount of student loan (Doable and almost done)

Be debt free ($3,800 to go!)

Continue contributing to 401K (I do 15%. 12% on my own. 3% employer. I DO however NEED to understand more about investing and other nitty-gritty such as re-distribution vs re-allocation etc. )

Understand better how 401K and other investment works.

Have 10K of emergency fund to be kept in a high interest account as a buffer. Not to be touched unless in emergency (Almost 50% achieved)

For the next 3 years, try my best to save $1,500 a month to accumulate $54,000.00 + Interest for down payment on a house (Start working on it NOW)

So these are my goals, and being that, I also need to have contingency plans which I will think about and will write a post about sometime soon.